Postal Savings Bank of China Taps Five Banks to Lead IPO

Chinese state lender Postal Savings Bank of China Co. tapped five investment banks to lead its initial public offering worth up to $10 billion, which is expected to be the largest such deal in Hong Kong this year, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

China's sixth-largest lender by assets has picked Bank of America Merrill-Lynch, China International Capital Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley to lead the IPO, the people said. UBS Group AG, which is an investor in Postal Savings Bank, wasn't among the banks picked to underwrite the deal, they said.

The Chinese bank's initial public offering would be the latest of China's big state banks to debut overseas. China's "big four" banks—Agricultural Bank of China Ltd., Bank of China Ltd., China Construction Bank Corp. and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.—are all listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong. Postal Savings Bank of China has more than 40,000 branches across China. That is twice the size of the branch network belonging to ICBC, China's largest bank by assets.

Postal Savings Bank raised $7 billion from a star-studded roster of investors ahead of its IPO last month. It sold a nearly 17% stake to a group including foreign investors UBS Group AG, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., International Finance Corp., Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Singapore firms DBS Bank Ltd. and Temasek Holdings Pte. Ltd.

Write to Kane Wu at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 27, 2016 04:55 ET (09:55 GMT)

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